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rawgabbitlast Thursday at 3:06 PM2 repliesview on HN

Scientists found evidence tuberculosis and other respiratory diseases ravaged the population.


Replies

jbotztoday at 5:10 AM

Actually, no. We don't know anything about the "population" because there are no attempts here to look at what percentage of living people/children were affected. We only know that of those children who died, a lot of them had had these specific indications of these specific illnesses (and we can probably assume that in many cases those were the direct or indirect cause of death).

Respiratory infections (like tuberculosis) in a population that uses indoor open fires for cooking and heat aren't exactly a big surprise; breathing indoor smoke causes chronic respiratory inflammation, which in turn weakens the immune system and makes the lungs more susceptible to infection.

binaryturtlelast Thursday at 3:36 PM

Thanks for the quick summary.